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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29885379">happy to die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukioapologist/pseuds/yukioapologist'>yukioapologist</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Ao no Exorcist | Blue Exorcist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst with a Happy Ending, Canonical Character Death, Emotional Hurt, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Hurt No Comfort, Survivor Guilt</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-06</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-15 16:41:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>623</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29885379</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/yukioapologist/pseuds/yukioapologist</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>shiro tries to keep the guilt at bay – but it’s the only way he knows how to mourn his lost family.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>happy to die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is actually very short, it was just something i’d thought about and i didn’t want to expand very much on it, mostly because this is my first time writing aoex in a long, long time, but i hope you enjoy it!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>that was the thing about forming connections, they made you vulnerable. it was the reason shiro had refused any friends when he was in his teens and early twenties. he’d loved his brothers, and it had hurt when he lost them. he didn’t want to feel that kind of pain ever again.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>he was right to do that; he’d come to love rick, jenny and yuri, and he’d lost them too. the loss of them, one by one, had slowly chipped away at him. after his visit to makiko, when she told him rick had died in the blue night, he’d become a husk. a hollow life form, trying to numb his feelings because they were too overwhelming.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>he’d have many sleepless nights, tossing and turning out of fear of the nightmares he had. his friends with soulless eyes, surrounding him and blaming him for their deaths. he knew it wasn’t his fault – realistically, he’d done all he could’ve for them. it was impossible to save everyone, and he thought he’d come to terms with that.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but that guilt becomes crushing again, when the twins are a little older, and yukio has crippling anxiety that he can’t help him with, and rin has a short temper and tendency to run headfirst into danger without thinking even when there’s no one around to help him if it’s too much to handle.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>it gives him anxiety in return, and he beats himself up over the past and worries over the possibility that one day, his sons will be in fatal trouble and he won’t be there to help them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>more than anything, he wants to be there until they’re old, with families and lives of their own, to see what they become once they flee his nest and become adults. he wants to protect them and any potential grandchildren, to feel his life had purpose and his mistakes didn’t define him.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but he never gets the chance. it pains him, but when he plunges that pin into his heart to save his sons, he doesn’t regret it. not when he can feel satan retreating back to gehenna, not when the burden he’d been carrying for the past fifteen years finally lifts from his shoulders.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and when he wakes, in a new life, it’s to rick, jenny and yuri waiting for him, with smiles on their faces and welcoming him with open arms. it makes his chest ache when he sees how young they are – still with the youth of their thirties while he’s an old man with grey hair, but he’s never been happier to see them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>he’d failed them when they were alive, and he’d made sure he didn’t repeat that mistake with his boys.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>yuri reaches out a hand, clasping hers around his and pulling him up. “your brothers will be happy to see you,” she says softly, and it fills shiro with warmth.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>an entire lifetime had passed since he’d seen any of his siblings. most of them were still toddler-sized, though a few were slightly older. goro was the only other adult of the siblings – but shiro knew that wasn’t because he’d lived a life. goro had been lost long before his body was taken.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>but their excitement when they see him overrides any negative feelings he has, because soon enough, he’s being bombarded with questions about his life, and he tells them everything.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>and as they wait for the twins and shura to join him, he thinks this time, he doesn’t mind it if he has to wait even a century for his family to be whole again. because now he only has three missing pieces, and if they can grow old before returning to him, he’s okay with that.</span>
</p>
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